An excerpt of a conversation with Ulelli Verbeke, independent photographer, editor and artivist from Guyana. By Cases Rebelles

I was interested in taking photos of people at events, making a change, breaking barriers. I remember going to SASOD’s events with my very small, simple, point and shoot camera and taking pictures of people, and after a bit they would call and ask me to come and take their pictures. Sometime after, Joel asked me if I would like to go to a photography class and I jumped on the chance ; SASOD covered the expense for the classes. It was very hard to take the classes because I did not have a professional camera, so understanding changing of shutter speed and aperture was difficult. But before the end of training, I was able to have my own camera with the help of my teacher and one of my massage clients.

I don’t really have a known photographer as an inspirational model but I do look at other photographers’ work. I just do what I see. I don’t know, I just think I view things differently ; I see art in almost anything. I once told a friend that I wished that we had some sort of sophisticated camera in our eyes so that as soon as you see something you want to take a photo of, you just blink and you can have it! Because, you really cannot recreate everything, once you see something at that moment, that’s it!

Last year in April I had my first photo exhibition here at Georgetown and also for SASOD’s 10^th Anniversary photo exhibition. Then I traveled to Brazil where I had a photo exhibition with Priscila Pascoal : Guy-Braz Photographic Exhibition and Conference Guyana, Brazil and Decolonization. Priscila organized this conference on decolonization where she was trying to bring Guyana and Brazil together to learn from each other.

My next exhibition will be on my work with the transgender community here in Guyana. In June this year, I will be involved in another exhibition in Canada for Pride. The exhibition will focus on immigrants from the Caribbean who are living in Canada.